


Draco Dormiens Nunquam Titillandus

by DragonaireAbsolvare



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: ...probably, Alternate Universe - Magic, Angst with a Happy Ending, Bromance, Fluff and Angst, Gen, Historically Inaccurate, I haven't read Fantastic Beasts, If You Squint - Freeform, M/M, Magical Creatures, Misunderstandings, Mutual Pining, Not Actually Unrequited Love, Or the Cursed Child, Poor Slytherin, War, Witches, dragon - Freeform, dunno if Slytherin's basilisk qualifies as a character, godric is an idiot, the slash is there, witch burnings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-13
Updated: 2019-11-13
Packaged: 2021-01-30 04:37:00
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,308
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21422299
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DragonaireAbsolvare/pseuds/DragonaireAbsolvare
Summary: History is written by the victors.Salazar Slytherin is a hated man, a genocidal maniac and a Muggle-hater to boot. He's set a basilisk loose inside a school full of children. His repertoire of spells are all dark magic; and obscure sources credit him with introducing the Killing Curse to Britannica.Godric reminisces._________________________________________I do not presume to own the Harry Potter universe. All credits to the lovely J K Rowling, without whom, we would not have ever delved into the Wizarding World.
Relationships: Godric Gryffindor & Helga Hufflepuff & Rowena Ravenclaw & Salazar Slytherin, Godric Gryffindor/Salazar Slytherin, Helga Hufflepuff & Salazar Slytherin
Comments: 5
Kudos: 77





	Draco Dormiens Nunquam Titillandus

**Author's Note:**

> I haven't read Fantastic Beasts or the Cursed Child, so if there's any stuff related to this in there, I haven't got a clue. Don't bash me, please. Also, I haven't got a beta, and I'm not a native speaker of English. So feel free to Brit-pick.  
Artwork coming soon!

> Draco dormiens nunquam titillandus: Never tickle a sleeping dragon.

* * *

Salazar laughed.

All of Godric Gryffindor’s thoughts chose that moment to flee, leaving him blank and smitten.

Salazar often smiled, Godric mused, but he had never heard his laugh. It was such a pleasant and merry sound, so rare from the quiet wizard. But it suited him well, and even the plants growing on the dungeon walls seemed to agree.

“Truly an idiot.” Ravenclaw sighed, although her eyes twinkled in amusement.

Salazar picked up another crushed herb and began tying it into the bandage. “Draco dormiens nunquam titillandus.”

Godric agreed. That one time had been bad enough.

***

Young Helena didn’t seem to agree though.

“Where did you poke it, Godric?” The little minx seemed to be everywhere, bursting with endless questions, her shining grey eyes full of curiosity. Godric realized he could not avoid

In the end, Godric relented. “Right in the eye.”

“Ouch! I suggest you try the stomach next time.” With an impish cackle, Helena skipped away, leaving a flabbergasted knight. Seriously?

***

“What foolishness are you up to, now?” Salazar asked.

Godric smiled mischievously. “There’s a friend I want you to meet. And translate, if possible.”

The mage raised an immaculate eyebrow. “Oh?”

The young knight crept into the forest, wincing at the twigs snapping at his feet. His gaze drifted over to Salazar, who glided like a ghost, completely at home. Eventually, Godric began tagging behind the mage. The forest yielded to Salazar, his touch healing its gnarled branches, and blades of grass springing up from under his feet.

“Its curse spreads.” The mage remarked absentmindedly. “They will rot again.” His feet led him to a clearing which had not been there the last fortnight. Trees were twisted, snapped, uprooted and charred. Ash and charcoal littered the ground. The stench of blood and rot hung heavily in the air.

Godric put a tentative hand on Salazar’s shoulders, and shook his head.

“There is a creature that needs our help.” The mage replied, his vivid green eyes boring into Godric’s mind.

The latter scratched his head. “Err... I would have told you this sooner-”

“You harmed it?” Salazar asked in disbelief.

“It was purely in self-defence!”

Salazar’s eyes were really green. Like the vines and herbs that he chose to surround himself with; a rare shade of green that Godric was sure he wouldn’t find if he combed through the whole of Èirinn. He kept staring, heedless of the fact that Salazar was a natural legilimens.

The mage looked away in disapproval, having realized Godric had fought with the creature and destroyed a good portion of the forest. He pushed off Godric’s hand and continued down the clearing and into a cave. The knight hastened after his friend, and came face to face with the black dragon whose eye he had poked.

The creature, apparently had good memory, and slowly uncurled from its nest. And that was when Godric realized the dragon was a nesting mother.

“She must have escaped from her clan.” Salazar whispered, and began hissing and screeching.

Slowly, the dragon turned to look at him, and snorted a plume of fire. Godric threw up a shield, and dragged Salazar out of the cave. The mage struggled, trying to go back inside.

“Are you an idiot?” Godric yelled.

“She is gravely injured.”

“It’s a bloody dragon, it can take care of itself!”

Another jet of fire shot out of the cave entrance, followed by a scaly head and glaring purple eyes. Godric fired spells rapidly from his not-so-humble repertoire, seized Salazar and ran. The dragon followed, blinded and angry, while Salazar kept hissing unhelpfully.

Eventually, the mage gave up, and cast a spell to morph the forest into containing the dragon, while Godric set him down and collapsed.

“Tell me, Godric. What was your intention in bringing me to the forest today?” Salazar asked in the tone he used to reprimand unruly students.

The knight was silent. What was he supposed to say, that he wanted to try tickling the dragon’s belly? That he wanted to hear that beautiful laugh again? That he wanted to have an adventure with Salazar like how they’d used to?

By heaven, those eyes were green. And mesmerising, like the gaze of a snake.

The mage frowned and walked away, back to his dungeons in the castle.

Godric lay on the forest floor, feeling disappointed.

***

Salazar began to wander into the forest more often, and Godric was worried. The forest was cursed, it housed an angry dragon, and a centaur clan had claimed majority of the land as their territory. The dark forest was unsafe for humans.

But he remembered that they had found Salazar in a cave inside such a forest, and that the mage’s innate ability to connect and converse with the plants and creatures around him would protect him from much of the dangers around.

***

Unicorns gathered around him, nuzzling into his golden braids as he worked. After a gruelling few moments, the foal was born, pale tufts of hair covered in shimmering silvery blood. It had a crooked spine, and probably wouldn’t be able to trot or run.

The entirety of Hogwarts was gathered behind a fence a few yards away. To be able to watch a unicorn birth was rare, and even Lady Ravenclaw had come down from her tower.

The mother unicorn heaved, and Salazar gently applied a paste of herbs and crushed moonstone to her belly, whispering sweet nothings into her ear. Once she was calmed, he headed to Hufflepuff, who was tending to the foal.

“He will not survive.” Salazar said quietly. Hufflepuff was confused, so he continued. “He would have remained within the womb till it burst.”

“What shall we do with him?” She whispered, although she knew the answer.

Salazar knelt beside the squealing foal, sombre and silent. Hufflepuff quickly got up and took the gathered students back to the castle. Only Ravenclaw and Gryffindor remained.

Salazar placed his palm on the foal and closed his eyes. _“Avada Kedavra!”_

***

It was the first time Godric had seen the Killing Curse.

A spell that was practically unheard of. The startling green, so familiar in its shade, knocked him out. When he woke up in the healing room, Salazar set a bowl of soup beside him.

“What was that?” Godric asked.

Salazar sighed. “Some things are better left unknown.”

“You- you killed it. A unicorn. With magic.”

“Yes.”

“It couldn’t be. Magic cannot destroy, just as it cannot create.” From the doorway, Ravenclaw nodded. Salazar pursed his lips, deep in thought.

“Magic is boundless.” He said at last, and Ravenclaw frowned.

“If that were true, dear Salazar, then it would have been discovered by now. Magic is ancient, and its practitioners have always tried to push its limits. But true creation has never been made, as well as true destruction-”

Godric was lost, as the two began yet another debate. All he knew that killing with magic opened possibilities that were far more terrifying than using a weapon, and that this would have to be hidden away, never to fall into the hands of someone who could abuse this power.

***

“It was wrong to kill the foal.” Godric said. Ravenclaw had left, and it was just the two of them inside the healing room. The mage looked pointedly at Godric’s ruby-hilted sword lying on the bedside table, so he hastily added: “I have slain _monsters,_ Salazar. That was a unicorn! It deserved a chance at life just as much as any of us.”

The mage sat on the edge of the bed and folded his hands. “It was not a question of punishing wrongs, Godric. It was a way of alleviating suffering. You must understand that.”

“But it’s bad magic.” Godric protested. “Like your Blood-Draining Curse.”

Salazar smiled patiently. “You are a child. There is so much in the world for you to learn.” He left the healing room, leaving the young knight incensed.

***

Salazar held onto his belief that there was no good or bad with magic, that it was purely the caster’s intention that decided the spell’s consequences. The mage rarely used spells, preferring the more ancient and basic methods of using plants and animals to heal. But when he did, he used obscure spells in foreign tongues that no one could make head or tail of, and often had sinister effects.

It frustrated Gryffindor and Ravenclaw to no end, the former in all hot righteousness and simple-minded justice. The latter, who spent most of her time drawing up complex arithmantic equations and runic formations to create spells and artefacts, found Salazar old-fashioned. While Healing was a worthwhile profession, he lacked the ability to appreciate modern magic and to apply it in his work.

Salazar drew back from any such ideological confrontations, finding solace in his gardens and forests, idly chatting to his serpent familiar coiled around his neck.

Godric tried so very hard to get closer to Salazar, but he found himself increasingly disagreeing with the mage’s beliefs. Short-tempered as he was, the knight would storm away after a fierce argument, and find himself back at square one.

Helga was the only one who still kept to him; sweet, immensely kind and unjudging Hufflepuff, who wholeheartedly shared his love for all living things and often accompanied him to tend to the dragon hatchlings he’d hidden in the forest.

The mother had succumbed to her injuries, (many of them inflicted by Godric, a traitorous part of his mind hissed) and the eggs had to be kept in the hearth until they hatched. Knowing Gryffindor would label them as monsters and attempt to kill them, Salazar had to be very stealthy. But Hufflepuff had found out anyway, on an unexpected visit to the dungeons, and even offered her warmer rooms to keep the baby dragons.

“I cannot return them to their clan. The mother was attacked and chased out; there is no assurance they wouldn’t do the same to the hatchlings.” Salazar said, tossing thin slices of raw meat into the stone enclosure.

Helga wished she could be more helpful. But she had literally no knowledge on dragons save the stories of vicious creatures who kidnapped princesses and looted gold.

“Could we put them back in the forest?”

Salazar stared, his green eyes unusually sharp and shining.

***

The two wrapped heavy spellwork around the baby dragons, covering them in blankets that Helga had fire-proofed. She followed Salazar into the forest, levitating the bundles along, until the wizard knelt and began to chant in ancient and lost languages.

A gust of wind blew the bundles off Helga’s levitation spell, and into the forest. Trees began to shift, until there was a path, and the wind carried the baby dragons far away until they were pinpricks in the moonlight, and trees began to shift again to their original places. Salazar did not stop, he kept chanting till dawn. Then the mage collapsed, exhausted. Helga carried him back to the Healing room in the dungeons.

***

Helga had been there, when they first met Salazar. A very young Godric had gone to slay werewolves in the pastoral villages of the Fenlands and was grievously wounded. The local Healers could not help him, and Helga rode through the marshlands, from village to town, asking for help. Then at a Muggle village on the borders of a dense forest, she was told about a ‘Green-eyed Witch’ in the forest, who could heal anything and bring the dead to life. All she had to do was follow the Will-O’-The-Wisps.

Knowing that they were impish creatures called Hinkypunks, Helga hesitated, but what other choice did she have? Godric was at the brink of death, clinging to his horse through sheer will, and they rode into the forest.

The Hinkypunks did not lead her to bogs or potholes. Instead, they took her to a cave in the forest, where the ‘Witch’ from the Muggle stories lived.

This ‘Witch’ had unearthly green eyes, and healed Godric with ease. His wounds closed, the werewolf poison was drained, and within two days, Godric was back to full health.

“Leave.” Was the only word the ‘Witch’ spoke, and the Hinkypunks ushered them out and sent them back to the borders of the forest.

When they crossed by Ravenside Castle, Helga asked Lady Ravenclaw, who was renowned for her wisdom and All-Seeing-Eye, if she knew of a Green-eyed Witch in the fens. To her surprise, neither did Ravenclaw know of such a witch, nor did she believe in a cure to werewolf venom.

But Helga had witnessed it with her own eyes.

Years later, Godric rose to fame. The Gryffindor Army sieged and captured Hogwarts Castle from a group of insurgents who wanted to resurrect Morgan Le Fay. The insurgents were executed, and this achievement brought Godric to the pinnacle of fame; drawing even the attention of the Muggle King of Avalon. Godric was conferred with the title, Protector of Brittany, and awarded a hefty sum.

It was then that he and Helga decided to establish a school of magic. Till then, all magic had been purely self-learned, and only the highly talented ever became successful mages. But magic was a birthright, and every man with magical blood deserved to wield it. The Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry was established.

Intrigued, Lady Ravenclaw came down from her ivory towers to draw up runes and enchantments that brought the ancient stone walls to life, and she then offered to teach. A stroke of pure luck, as Godric put it, to find a spellcrafter of such calibre amidst their ranks.

It was then decided that Helga would teach the all basic charms and concoctions that everyone with magical blood needed in their lives. Godric would teach them duelling and battle; to plan, attack and defend, both with and without magic. Ravenclaw would teach all the higher sciences- alchemy, astronomy, arithmancy and runes.

“We need a healer.” Ravenclaw said one day, after Godric sent another injured student to her for the umpteenth time. She opened her All-Seeing-Eye, and saw a man with startling green eyes; but she also saw danger and discord. But by then, Godric had left in search of a master healer; Helga having told him of the Witch of the Fens.

A year later, Godric returned with the Green-eyed Witch and his multitude of creatures, who personified the wilderness that was nature. Ravenclaw suspected that he was part-Fae, and the way he delivered his name, ‘Salazar Slytherin’, sounded too unpractised and unnatural to be true.

***

Helga had been there when the Witch of the Fens brought Godric from the clasp of Death. She had been there when, upon Salazar’s touch, the plain and barren land around Hogwarts Castle, too drenched in the darkness of its previous masters, bloomed into the rich, lush forests and meadows that they were now. She had been there when the vengeful ghosts in the dungeons broke their ties to the world and passed on.

She knew the Green-eyed Witch was capable of magic far beyond the comprehension of most.

***

Salazar woke to the bright fires of Hufflepuff’s chambers.

Helga was reading on a couch, she looked up and smiled at him. “Would you like some soup?”

He shook his head. “The hatchlings are safe. I bade the winds to carry them wherever they would flourish.”

***

There was war again.

Lord Antioch Nefasius had come by to ask Lord Gryffindor and his army to join them, but the latter had already sworn allegiances to the King of Avalon, and so had Ravenclaw. Hufflepuff, though born of a prominent family, chose to remain behind and take care of Hogwarts.

Which left behind Slytherin.

Nefasius attempted to coax Slytherin into joining the war, first by promising honour and prestige, then wealth and other worldly pleasures. When neither worked, Nefasius offered up a share of whatever territory they managed to conquer.

Slytherin refused.

Perplexed, Nefasius left.

But Godric was delighted and tried to cajole Salazar into joining his side.

“Magical blood is rare as it is.” Salazar reasoned. “Why would you spill it over a war that has nothing to do with our kind?”

***

Salazar’s first glimpse of the battleground was when the two sides were at a stalemate, and the mage had offered his abilities as a neutral party. With immense sorrow, the mage began healing the injured.

A week into his stay at the battlefront, Salazar had encountered three arrows, five attempts at poisoning and two not-so-subtle threats about healing the enemy. Finally, while he was healing a mage at Nefasius’ camp, Sir Tristan’s sword came flying at him.

He quickly raised a wall of earth to shield himself, and the sword did no harm, but it was enough to make Salazar realise his presence was no longer welcome at either of the camps, and the mage retreated into the woods.

The war raged on for months, and Godric often stole past the battleground to bring him news.

“We’ve flattened Nefasius.” The knight announced gleefully, setting down a barrel of liquor. “He and his accomplices will be brought to court and hung in public.”

Salazar nodded briefly, unable to share his companion’s joy.

“Do you not feel this was naught but mindless slaughter?”

“What, hanging them?”

“The war.”

“Oh.” Godric was silent for a while. “It’s _war._ What did you expect?”

The knight drank himself silly after that, and fell asleep. But Salazar, who had chosen to remain sober, sensed the heat and hurried out.

Flames, feral and violent, unlike any he had seen before, greeted his eyes.

The entire battleground was burning, reeking of blood and scorched flesh. The air tingled and fizzed with magic, and fiery beasts danced around, turning the two camps to ashes. The army of the Muggle King was panicking. The mages of both armies were all tied together and set on fire, and Salazar could taste their hatred and pain and the last drops of their magic fuelling the beastly fire.

The Fiend-Fyre razed everything it touched, and as dawn rose, there was nothing of the battlefield and its occupants but char and ash. Salazar stared in horror as he witnessed the creation of yet another magic that should not be.

The beastly flames were born of betrayal, ill intent and fed on the magic of all that it killed, and had gained sentience. They had to be leashed.

Salazar cupped a bit of the blazed earth in his hands, summoning the spirits of the dead and raising the ground. A mass of soil hovered over the flames, and buried it within the mound. No plants would grow over the grave of that beastly fire, but water would keep it soothed.

A lake slowly began filling the space, until the landscape could no longer be recognised as what it used to be.

Even so, he felt the worst was yet to come.

Salazar called for his horse, pulled Godric along and rode back to Hogwarts.

***

“You killed the Muggles.” Godric accused angrily.

The knight had just returned from a meeting with the King, to claim his reward for assistance in the war. The King had sent him back empty-handed, which puzzled everyone.

“I did no such thing.” Slytherin replied.

Godric snarled. “There were witnesses, Salazar, who saw you wield a demonic fire that’s never been seen before. They say you stood and watched it burn thousands of people.”

Salazar could not deny that last statement.

“I know you think little of Muggles-”

“Muggles are greedy, awful little creatures. They desire our magic, but what they cannot get, they fear.” The mage said. “You did not see how they burnt the mages after they served their purpose.”

“They burnt _Nefasius’_ mages.”

Salazar turned away. It was painful to see Godric choose the Muggles’ lies over him.

***

Ravenclaw approached Salazar in the library.

“I don’t understand what you have against Muggles so much that you would rather massacre them.” She said. “I’m not on their side, but I thought you of all people would be against violence.”

Salazar sighed and closed his book. “These Muggles will keep pulling our kind away from our beliefs and traditions, until nothing remain and we have nothing to tie us to the earth. The earth gives us our magic, Lady Ravenclaw. When that happens, wizards will no longer exist, and we will all be Muggles ourselves. That being said, I maintain that I did not wield the fiendfyre that day.”

***

An envoy from the Royal Court of Avalon arrived at Hogwarts Castle. Godric unfurled the scroll and read.

“His Majesty, the King of Avalon, demands the surrender of Salazar Slytherin, who is convicted of conspiracy, treachery and mass-murder.”

The knight frowned. What Salazar did was absolutely wrong, and the mage seemed to feel little regret. But there was a portion of Godric that only wanted to protect Salazar, who wanted to see him laugh and pet unicorns, and peer into intense emerald eyes and nothing more.

Godric put the letter down, rushed to the dungeons and blasted the door open in his haste.

Salazar was braiding his hair.

“You must escape. Avalon intends to arrest you. There are guards waiting outside.” With no further warning, Godric grabbed the mage by the hand and dragged him out, breaking through a window and into the Black Lake. The two swam to the forest, and then ran to a small grazing patch where there was always a thestral or two.

The thestrals recognised Salazar’s smell and flocked to him, hoping for apples.

“I’m afraid I have none today, my beautiful.” The mage patted a pitch-black muzzle. Godric watched the man murmur lovingly to the animals, and the painful realisation hit him.

This was it.

He would never see Salazar again.

The mage mounted and held his hand out, which he dazedly took. “Farewell, Godric.”

Godric met that lovely green gaze one last time. “Be safe.” Then leathery wings were flapping, and Salazar Slytherin was gone.

***

The news of the Witch-Burnings reached far and wide.

Ravenclaw hung her head sadly. She had seen discord and calamity surrounding the Witch of the Fens, but she hadn’t been able to see what the calamity would be. It seemed Salazar Slytherin wasn’t the harbinger of destruction for the Wizarding World, but a catalyst. The Muggles had seen Slytherin wield immense power, and realised how terrifying magic could be. The Kingdom of Avalon had broken off all ties with Hogwarts after they refused to hand Slytherin over.

Anyone rumoured to wield magic was caught and burnt at the stake. Men, women and children were stripped in public, searched for ‘Witch-marks’ and flogged, and this paranoia spread all across the continent.

Then one day, troops of Lord Octavius Mortimer marched into Hogsmeade and Lochwyll, the two Wizarding towns near Hogwarts and slaughtered the population. Being closer to Hogwarts than Lochwyll, most of the children of Hogsmeade could be taken to safety. Lochwyll was utterly destroyed, and not even the babes were spared the stake.

Lord Mortimer set up camps at the two towns and turned attentions to Hogwarts.

Inside the castle, everyone tensed.

War had never set foot into its thresholds before; not since the Gryffindor Army took over the castle.

***

Deeper in, within the bowels of the ancient castle, another creature stirred.

Bright yellow eyes blinked blearily as it recalled its master’s words.

“Should the Muggles ever stand threat to Lady Magic, I ask you to defend her glory. Protect Hogwarts as if ‘twere the last haven in existence.”

The young serpent slithered out through the hollows in the walls, into the Dark Forest. It called out to all the living beings of the forest, Salazar’s creatures, and requested aid. Under the cloak of the night, trees and twigs wove together to make ramparts and Venomous Tentaculae crept and covered pathways. Beasts scattered their quills on the ground and hid in the shadows to attack.

When Lord Mortimer and his army marched into the castle grounds, there ensued a bloodbath. While the inhabitants slept, the castle fought the invasion.

The tranquillity of dawn was broken by an alarmed cry by one of the spies Gryffindor had posted at Hogsmeade. Hundreds of Mortimer’s men had died inexplicably as if turned to stone. The rest of the camp at Hogsmeade that had marched into Hogwarts had been obliterated by creatures of the forest. What remained was the camp at Lochwyll, and Gryffindor’s army rode down and surrounded them.

Lochwyll fell easily after the news of Lord Mortimer’s demise spread.

Once all enemy forces had been driven out of their immediate vicinity, Gryffindor returned to Hogwarts.

“It is imperative that we set up defences for the castle. Hitherto Hogwarts has provided shelter to all passers-by and refugees, Magical or Muggle.” Ravenclaw said. “This can continue no further. I will see to it that Hogwarts is separated from the politics of man. This is a place for learning, not a battleground.”

Lady Ravenclaw drew up runes and wards around the castle that would make it unplottable on a map or a pointing spell. Godric then laced it with protective and defensive spellwork.

The Dark Forest had suffered a severe attack, and far too much blood had been shed on its grounds; the forest absorbed the ill-will of the dead and began reverting to its cursed, gnarled state. Without Salazar to heal it, the forest would not recover, and the dark aura hung above it ominously. Helga buried enchanted crystals at the four cardinal directions and keyed it to the wards to limit the flow of magic around the castle, so that the dark magic developing inside the forest would not harm the children inside Hogwarts. The place was then declared out of bounds.

***

On certain days of sunshine and spring blooms, Godric would look out at the herb-gardens and the forest, and fancy a glimpse of unicorns huddled around a lone blond figure. Or said blond repairing a fallen Bowtruckle nest, or removing an infestation of Pixies from the Charms classrooms. He would find himself wandering into the dungeons, where the vines and potted shrubs were slowly beginning to wilt.

“We should take them out for air.” Helga said softly, placing a gentle hand on his shoulders. Godric nodded, his voice far too thick to reply. That afternoon, the plants in the dungeons were taken out and set up in a small indoor garden close to the kitchens, where it would be taken care of by the students and the elves.

The next time Godric wandered into the dungeons, it was a cold, empty place; rough stone walls reflecting the dull light filtering through windows under the lake. The air was damp and mouldy, and it truly felt like the desolate dungeon it was.

***

Gryffindor smiled amiably at his giggling grandchildren as he retold the tale of how he’d been chased by a Hebridean Black through the Forbidden Forest, and beaten it. He may have glossed over some details, like how the dragon had nearly taken all his limbs off, or how he’d almost been burnt to a crisp.

“Draco dormiens nunquam titillandus!” The youngest, Gwynneth, chirped up. Godric felt a pang in his heart when he heard that. Old laughter resounded in his ears.

Ignatius, the oldest, scratched his chin thoughtfully. “Is that where the Hogwarts Motto came from, Grandpapa?”

“Quite so.” Godric ruffled his hair affectionately. “Now, if you bring me my old sword, I could tell you the tale of how I tricked a goblin into selling me this. The old rascal wanted to snatch Helga, you know.”

The evening was spent in the warmth of the fireplace, until the children were ushered to bed by their frazzled parents. The Protector of Brittany rested his arthritic feet on a cushion and ran a nostalgic hand over his ruby-encrusted sword. The rubies turned redder with every creature slain, and Salazar’s frowning face appeared before his eyes.

The mage had never approved of the slaughter of any creature. Godric remembered being glared at when he had decapitated the maker of the blade.

“It’s a _goblin!_ They’re untrustworthy little blighters!” Godric had argued. Salazar had just kept glaring, throughout the ritual to bring the goblin back to life. The creature had then been Obliviated and sent on its way, while Godric plundered its hoard of treasure and rescued Helga. Later, Godric had found out that Necromancy was a dark art, and started another row over morality.

Now, Godric understood. Salazar had been wise, the way Ravenclaw had not been. Yes, she could understand the workings of minds, objects and spells like no other could, but Ravenclaw had been far too entrenched in the beliefs of the Wizarding World to truly understand Magic. Salazar’s wisdom stemmed from a deep communion with nature, with Magic itself. It was not a wisdom of society; but the harmony of life. The morality of men had no place there.

***

Gwynneth and Ignatius, the little plagues, dragged Godric out into the garden. He growled irritably. His feet were killing him, and all he wanted was to sit in the parlour with a nice mug of butterbeer.

“Grandpapa, don’t you want to have an adventure?” Gwynneth asked, doe-eyes blinking innocently. “We’ve found something in the woods yonder.” The two tugged him into said woods, deeper and deeper, until Ignatius quickly thrust the silver sword into his hands.

Godric sighed. He was far too old for this, and he’d had enough adventures for a lifetime.

And then, to Godric’s horror, he saw it.

A bright green dragon, curled up on its sides and snoring out little puffs of fire.

“No.” He said automatically. “No. We’re leaving, and we are not coming back to this place. Ever.”

The little pests wouldn’t budge. And Godric was never good at saying ‘No’ when Gwynneth flashed her teary-eyes at him.

Just a tickle, eh?

Well, for old times’ sake-

Godric trudged towards the sleeping beast nervously. This was a bad idea. He should never have let himself be talked into doing this; he was the mature and responsible adult here.

Three fingers, wrinkled with age, reached out to tickle the dragon’s soft underside and-

ROAR!!!

An enraged dragon sprang to life, stomping with clawed feet and shaking the ground, setting fire to everything around it. Godric dashed to protect his grandchildren, and swung the sword against the green dragon in a burst of power he hadn’t known his old limbs still had. The knight sharply told the children to run back to the warded manor and stay hidden.

Before he could see if they had heeded to him, the dragon’s snout clamped firmly on his left leg and swung him wildly. Memories flashed before his eyes as he registered pain blossoming on the back of his head, his ribs, his hips, shoulders...

***

When Godric woke up, he saw Salazar blinking at him.

“You never learn, do you?”

Godric sat up, and realised he was heavily bandaged. “Am I dead? Are you a dream?” He asked stupidly.

And then Salazar laughed, petting a runespoor curled around his neck. “Foolish boy. If the forest had not carried you to me, you would have been dead.”

Godric stared, like a man who had not seen water in ages. The Witch of the Fens had not aged a day since Godric last saw him, and his name was like a fervent prayer on his lips. Green eyes saw through his soul, and hidden in a cave, far from the shackles of society, Godric could open his heart and beg Salazar to stay.

And the Witch of the Fens smiled and laid their foreheads together. “Perhaps it was indeed for the best that you tickled that dragon.” He murmured against Godric’s nose. The latter grinned like an idiot.

“Indeed.”

~***~

* * *

FIN


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